新编综合英语film and cinema

• Avatar, in other words, has none of the selling points that are supposed to guarantee hit status for a bigbudget movie. Yet James Cameron‟s enviro-epic, with no famous name attached to it but its writer-director‟s, is not just a blockbuster; it‟s king of the world. Since premiering（首次公演） on Dec. 18, it has proceeded to shatter（粉碎） most existing box-office（票房） records at home and abroad. It has been No.1 every week, swatting（重拍） away ambitious newcomers like so many mosquitoes. And like the best ambassador for Hollywood, it has earned most of its revenue—nearly 70%—in ut Avatar wouldn‟t connect so broadly and deeply with audiences if the central relationship of Jake (Sam Worthington), the crippled Marine, and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), daughter of the Na‟vi tribal chief, weren‟t plausible（貌似可信的） and inviting（有魅力的）. Like Titanic, this is a love story enveloped by catastrophe（[kə„tæstrəfɪ] ）. That‟s why Hollywood‟s anxiety about the movie‟s supposedly（可能） limited appeal（吸引力） to both sexes was needless（不必要的）. Indeed, Avatar‟s closest kin among current hits may be The Blind Side, the female-skewing sports film. Both tell stories of strong women who find rootless（无所寄托的） young men and give them a purpose around which they can build their lives.
Avatar Ascendant
Richard Corliss
• It has no stars. It‟s not a sequel(续集). It isn‟t the screen version of a best-selling novel, a comic-book franchise or the Bible. It‟s got a lot of battle scenes, so women certainly wouldn‟t want to see it. It‟s also the most tree-hugging movie ever, with a defiantly（挑战地；对抗地 ） leftish agenda—at the climax, we‟re meant to cheer when American soldiers get killed. And what does the title mean, anyway?
• Recall that Titanic was a colossal（巨大的） gamble （赌博） back in 1997. With a $200 million budget, it was, some said, the most expensive picture ever made. (In real dollars, that dubious（可疑的） honor would probably go to the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra in 1963.) Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were not yet established stars. The historical event lacked suspense: whatever else happened, that 1912 ocean liner（班轮） would sink; there would be no Titanic Ⅱ. Moreover, the scenario[sɪ„nɑːrɪəʊ剧本] Cameron did invent was a love story, and that would scare off the guys. But the director took his risk, and it paid off （见效）, attracting all sectors of the audience, but especially women. This often-ignored demographic （人口统计学） made Titanic the hit of all hits.
• Avatar‟s mantra（咒语，颂歌） is “I see you,” and its final image is of someone‟s eyes snapping（猛烈） open. Journeying to the year 2154, moviegoers everywhere have embraced the film—surely the most vivid and persuasive creation of a fantasy world ever seen in moving pictures—as a total sensory, sensuous, sensual experience. The planet Pandora is a wonder world of flora and fauna（动植物群）: a rainforest (where it rarely rains) of gigantic trees and phosphorescent（磷光的） plants, of flying steeds （骏马）, panther dogs and hammerhead（鲁钝的） dinosaurs. Audiences are just as beguiled by Pandora‟s humanish tribe, the Na‟vi—the lean, 10-ft.tall, blue-striped people with yellow eyes. They are what humans might have been if they had evolved in harmony with, not in opposition to, the Edenic environment that gave them birth.
• Two notes of restraint（约束）: First, the movie‟s income is swelled（膨胀） by the higher prices charged for the 3-D version and the Imax experience. (These formats account for 80% of the film‟s domestic gross; worldwide, Avatar has earned about $125 million in just 262 Imax theaters.) Second, the rate of inflation complicates any comparison of movie hits from one decade to another. In real dollars, none of the superhits of the past decade—not The Dark Knight nor any movie with pirates, hobbits, wizards or spider men—make the list of the 25 top-grossing domestic films. Titanic is the only picture of the past quarter century in the top 10. (It‟s sixth.) Cameron‟s new film would have to take in some $950 million in today‟s dollars just to match his last one. Avatar is barely more than(no more than 仅仅) a third of the way toward reaching the real-dollar champ(冠军), Gone with the Wind.
• After Titanic, Cameron got financial carte blanche全权委托 to spend a bundle on another no-star epic. (The film‟s distributor（发 行人）, 20th Century Fox, claims that the budget for Avatar was $237 million, less than that of Spider-Man 3 or the last Harry Potter movie.) This time, instead of re-creating a cruise ship, Cameron created a whole new world, using technologies he waited nearly a decade to see come to fruition(实现，成熟). The man who built the Titanic became the God of the Old Testament—or at least J. R. R. Tolkien— summoning previously unseen lands from his majestic imagination.